Penetration Testing With The Raspberry Pi

June 28, 2012 by 28 Comments

PwnPi is a penetration testing distribution rolled up for the Raspberry Pi platform. This should come as no surprise to anyone. The RPi board has a beefy processor, it’s relatively low power, has the option of the on-board NIC or a USB WiFi dongle, and it already has Linux kernel and desktop sources available to start from.

Now we will admit we’re a bit disappointed from this tip. Don’t get us wrong, the distro looks like it’s well done, and we’re sure there are a lot of folks out there who will be happy to have these tools to help test their network security. But this is a software only hack and we were expecting to see a nice little covert package that could be plugged into an outlet (SheevaPlug style), or a battery-powered module that can be plugged into an Ethernet port and hidden away.

Now you know what we want, don’t forget to send in a link once you pull it off.

[Thanks Scott]

Roll Your Own Battery Backup System

June 28, 2012 by 16 Comments

[Chris] and [Dom] wanted to build their own battery backup system on the cheap. They were very creative in sourcing the parts, and ended up putting together a battery-backed CCTV system for about eighty bucks.

Since short power outages are fairly common in the area this battery backup makes sense. We’ve seen some pretty gnarly whole-house systems but this is more of a novelty. That’s a good thing, because the hacking duo decided to reuse batteries which were headed for the scrap yard. They’re connected to a trickle charger which makes sure that they’re continually topped off when mains power is energized. But when there’s a blackout a relay switches an outlet box over to the inverter (also a used part).

The system is outlined in the entertaining video after the break. You’ll see they guys show off the completed build, followed by a walk through of the circuit they designed and how it functions.

Continue reading “Roll Your Own Battery Backup System” →

Cheat Your Way Through The Original Prince Of Persia

June 28, 2012 by 3 Comments

If you don’t have the patience to play through the original Prince of Persia perhaps you should just cheat? [BLuRry] has made this easy for us, by building Prince of Persia cheats into JACE, the Java Apple Computer Emulator.

He shows off the emulator and the cheats he added in the video after the break. We saw the ability to teleport anywhere, kill enemies immediately, and open gates and exits. All of this happens with the click of a mouse. But there’s also a configuration screen used to enable the cheats that offers a handful of other cheat options that weren’t original to the game. [BLuRry] managed to roll these cheats into the emulator after some thoughtful study of the original source code which [Jordan Mechner] recently released after the once-lost floppy discs storing the ancient digital gem were discovered.

You know, we always see people running doom on various types of hardware. Maybe we should start using PoP as our go-to novelty game?

Continue reading “Cheat Your Way Through The Original Prince Of Persia” →

RickRolled By RedBull

June 27, 2012 by 25 Comments

As you’ve already seen, we’ve been invited to participate in the Redbull creation contest. While we were deep into our work today, hacking things apart and soldering things together while trying not to blow ourselves up, we received a second package! It had a hand written note explaining that this was the last of its type, reserved for only the most awesome teams. We got the very last one.

In this box was another bullduino. This one had a shield on it with a fancy display in the middle and a few scattered LEDs. Upon plugging it in, we were greeted with a “simon” style game that you can play using the resistive touch pads on the pcb. You can see the result in the video above. Also, my nose doesn’t work very well, but my wife informed me that the red bull mail smelled like bacon. I’m unsure if this was intentional or not.

Our project is coming long nicely. Preliminary tests today yielded fantastic results with minimal sub dermal hematoma. We look forward to unveiling this beast to the public. Stay tuned!

LiPo Battery Tester For Solar Vehicle Battery Array

June 27, 2012 by 12 Comments

If you’re building solar vehicles at a competitive level you’ve got to know exactly how the storage batteries will perform. To that end [Matthew] built a Lithium Polymer battery tester for use by the McMaster University Solar Car Project. It worked well, but could only test one battery at a time. He just finished up a second version, which can test battery specifications on up to eight units at once. It saves a lot of time, but still takes fifteen hours to test just one set of the units used by the vehicle.

The most important aspect being measured is the discharge curve. Sure, there’s a datasheet that includes this information, but how can be sure that what you received will perform at spec? Each of the eight channels can be disconnected from the system using a relay. This is just one of the safety features which watch for things like over-voltage and over-current conditions. Remember, Lithium batteries can heat up fast if there’s a problem. Data is sampled on a 12-bit ADC and can be pushed to a computer via USB for graphing.

Ankle Bracelet Lets You Become Emperor Palpatine

June 27, 2012 by 57 Comments

Want to shoot lighting bolts from your hands to punish your enemies? You can (almost) do just that with this static electricity generator hack. Above you can see the charge jumping off of this guy’s knuckle and surging through the LED. But that’s not the only trick you can pull off when wearing just a bit of hardware around your ankle. The video after the break shows sand grains jumping around as a charged hand is waved over them.

The trick is done by powering a negative ion generator from a 9V battery. This can’t be done directly, since the ion generator is looking for an AC power source. But conversion is as easy as scrapping an inverter which is designed to plug into a car cigarette lighter. Everything is shoehorned into a glasses case, which can then be strapped on to your ankle. Why this fascination with the ankle area? One part of the answer is that this provides an easy way to interface the ion generator output with your skin. The other part of the answer is that you need to make sure the system is grounded (but you’re not) and the build includes a ring that goes around your shoe to achieve this.

Check out the demo and full build instructions in the video after the break.

Continue reading “Ankle Bracelet Lets You Become Emperor Palpatine” →

Robotic Rock-paper-scissors Never Lets You Win

June 27, 2012 by 12 Comments

So robots kick our butts at tic-tac-toe, chess, Jeopardy, and now they’re the dominant species at rock-paper-scissors too. This robot arm will outmatch your at the game every single time. It’s not just fast enough to keep up, but it figures out what you’re planning to do and reacts according. All of this happens way to fast for you to catch it in the act.

Researchers at the University of Tokyo came up with the idea of combining high-speed vision with a high-speed hand. Apparently one millisecond is all it takes to analyze what move you’ve chosen. The time it takes for the hand to form the conquering position is only marginally longer than that. As you can see in the clip after the break, it already knows the protocol of 1-2-3 shoot and doesn’t need any operator intervention to start a new game, or repeatedly school you on trying to compete with a machine.

We’ve been beaten at the game by a machine before. This is just first time that the human player doesn’t need to wear special equipment and the machine has moved from a virtual hand to a physical one.

Continue reading “Robotic Rock-paper-scissors Never Lets You Win” →